Language

Public signs

Wasted in translation

DURING the parade of athletes at the Olympics opening ceremony, the announcer presented each country's delegation first in French and then in English. This makes sense, of course. French and English are the official languages of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). But I couldn't help wondering whether the translations were necessary. With a handful of exceptions, country names are identical or nearly so (Canada, Canada; Mexique, Mexico). Aside from procedural reasons, did the IOC really need to read both names? Would monolingual English or French speakers have been lost if the announcer had stuck with just one language?

I had some of the same thoughts in South Africa. Near intersections, text on the bitumen reads "slow" in English and "stadig" in Afrikaans. At turns, the road would warn that a lane was "only", or "slegs", for left turns. These are very different words. But near schools, text on the pavement reads "school" and "skool". Surely someone who didn't know a lick of Afrikaans would be able to work out what "skool" means, and a monolingual Afrikaans speaker would comprehend "school". City planners didn't bother printing "stop" twice, since it's the same word in both languages. Is it really necessary to have both "school" and "skool"?

Visitors to the international airport in Mumbai might notice duplicates, too. The official language of the state of Maharashtra is Marathi, but signs are also printed in Hindi and English. Hindi and Marathi use the same script, and they share a good amount of formal vocabulary. The result is that signs in the airport often have two identical lines of Hindi and Marathi (or Marathi and Hindi; who knows?): "Toilet / शौचालय / शौचालय". These examples of duplicate translations aren't egregiously wasteful, but there are probably places where including an unnecessary translation uses up precious space or time, or costs more to print.

Many words, such as terms for popular food products (coffee, for example) or scientific jargon, are similar or identical in otherwise unrelated languages. For languages that share a close relationship, like English and French, or English and Afrikaans, or Hindi and Marathi, even more frequent overlaps are inevitable. Perhaps we don't always need translations. Or perhaps we do need to translate obviously identical words in order to remain consistent with situations in which translated words are unintelligible, or are false friends.

Or perhaps it's just that an official language is an official language, and even in cases such as शौचालय / शौचालय, it needs to be provided no matter the inconvenience, lest its official status enter jeopardy—or lest citizens or consumers complain, a far worse outcome.

I have this nagging little suspicion that the Economist is infested with the common British/American attitude that 'English is good enough, so why bother with anything else?'
Unfortunately for our former colonial masters, we 'primitives' are just the teeniest bit unhappy with the idea of becoming proper, well-behaved copies of the master race.
Very few languages are spoken by enough people to ensure their long-term survival, given the socio-economic prestige, technological advantages & political power of the global English-speaking community.
I think I'll keep on insisting that Afrikaans & the other indigenous languages of South Africa are used both by the State & by anyone in the private sector who wishes to sell their goods or services to me. Because the moment the speakers of any language becomes blasé about the public & commercial use & status of their language, is the moment they sign its death warranty.

Nice post. It reminds me of a time when a few Spanish friends and I planned to write a Completely Redundant Spanish/Portuguese Dictionary.

Only words that are exactly the same in both languages would be featured. For instance, mesa/mesa (table). Or casa/casa (house).

It was to be in two tomes, really: the Spanish/Portuguese and the Portuguese/Spanish, of course. But, unfortunately, we could not find a publishing house.

We had this brilliant idea (yet to be recognized) after noticing that every time one of us asked "how do you say that in Spanish/Portuguese"?, it would probably be one of the many identical words shared by the two languages.

I'm sure it much easier in official capacities to always translate instead of determining when you can get away with not translating.
Who wants to set up a committee to determine what sounds sufficiently similar? Who's going to empower some announcer to play it by ear? In practice, nations can get pretty touchy about these things and who needs the headache just to supposedly save some effort?

In this Johnson sets up a straw man, ie is it necessary to provide everything in two or more official languages, and then, in the last phrase of the last sentence cuts him down.
It "needs to be provided no matter the inconvenience... lest citizens... complain". This answer was blindingly obvious from the opening paragraph to anyone who has the least experience of multilingual societies and their politics.
It seems like a thoroughly pointless story with a foregone conclusion.

Indeed. Roadsigns in (most of*) Ireland show both English and Irish names unless the only difference is spacing and accent, in which case they show the Irish only (e.g. "Cóbh" not "Cobh", "Port Laoise" not "Portlaoise"; but both "Tuam" and "Tuaim", "Portumna" and "Port Omna", "Gort" and "An Gort").

* A recent eccentric minister decreed that in Irish-speaking areas the English name should be removed, riling locals and anglophones alike.

The intercity train from Brussels to Liege is amusing in this regard. In Brussels, stations are announced in French and Dutch (e.g. "Bruxelles Central/Brussel Centraal"). The intermediate stop in Leuven being in Flanders, it would be illegal to make a public statement in French, hence it is announced in Dutch. Not to be outdone, Wallonia requires that Liege be announced only in French. The truly confused are welcome to take the international train straight through to Aachen, and hear all announcements in French, Dutch, English and German.

You may not see the difference between presentation in two different languages and translation... You work from the point of view that English or French may be sufficient for those who can understand. WHen you limit yourself to a list of countries, it may seem simple, but beyond that, it is more complex than a question of translation. For many it is a question of simple respect.

The argument is weak....and I don't see the "point" in the article! It is just more like a personal-opinion article.

"Maybe" the country name sounds "similar",but other words are definitely different!
The similar example of words you mentioned are mostly the "objects" whose development or usage is deep influenced by the "Industrial Revolution" or its life style.
But the development of language is so LONG not just the thing after 16.17th century....

Andy by the way, Hindi and Marathi are " Indo-Aryan languages".....ok? And English is west Germanic language while French is Roman language... Even though England and France seems really geographically close, but their "relation" is far......

At least Hindi and Marathi are in the same language system....
So your example is not an adequate proof....!!!

Last but not least, language is not just about the word and sound, it's more like the reflection of cultural/social context and perception!!!

Sometimes a same word in similar languages projects different meanings. For instance, the case between Indonesian and Malay, languages with very similar grammatical structure and a lot of shared vocabulary. In Malaysia, they use the word "kereta" to refer to automobiles. However, in Indonesia, the word "kereta" is not used for automobiles; we use the word "mobil" instead. The term "kereta" is usually used only for rail vehicles or horse-drawn carriage.
This could cause confusion; for instance, an Indonesian could interpret a sign "Medan Kereta" in Kuala Lumpur as a train station, instead of a parking lot.

In more developed places :-), such as Hong Kong, the caller usually has a choice. For instance, if I call a bank there, I am asked, in the respective languages, to push buttons 1, 2 or 3 for Putonghua, Guandonghua or English. And, since I do this often and know which I want, I push the appropriate button as soon as the message starts without waiting for the end of the spiel.
I agree, having to sit through everything several times, much of it incomprehensible, would be a pain.
But I came across another thing that is really ridiculous on a British Airways flight from London to Hong Kong some years ago. The announcement early in the flight was, "The staff on this flight speak English, French, Spanish, Cantonese, Mandarin, Hindi and Urdu (or some such combination of languages) and will be pleased to serve you in any of them."
This was entirely in English only.
I was bemused at the thought of an elderly, unilingual, sinophone granny's wondering what had been said and wondering it for the rest of the flight.

For signage and announcements, condensing the duplicates would cause unnecessary confusion. The reason is that people get accustomed to blanking out the slots that they don't understand, so if their language is third, they will expect two phrases of gibberish before they start listening/reading.